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Rogues gallery

We would like to give our sincere thanks the owners of these cars for demonstrating to the world that the UK parking laws either don’t exist or are flouted with abandon! Needless to say, we have chosen to show examples where people have shown uncommon abilities at looking after ‘number one’ at the expense of everyone else.

Except for when a residential road is too narrow to allow parking and single file traffic (at the same time) but has got enough room on pavements for half a car and a pushchair. I think we just need to use a bit of common sense here 😛

A development for the elderly should have had an ambulance bay included in the planning requirements. In any case, patients are moved on a gurney or wheelchair so wheeling them along the pavement to the ambulance would present no problem, provided that the pavement isn’t blocked by cars of course.

For sure. You can add them to out Flickr group as detailed in the ‘Do something’ section. Do please only upload the more impressive examples where you have done something about it which could simply being that you sent a copy of the photo to the authorities.

Hi, I’ve just posted a photo on flkr. Which I call Hedgehog.
This is an example of many photos that I have sent to local authorities and the police.
Believe it or not this and all my other examples are not obstructions according the police.
I have a senior police inspector visiting me on Friday to discuss this issue.
These are the things that I have done so far in order to put pressure on local authorities, the police and MP’s. to ban pavement parking: –
I have written to all of them and challenged the replies, as you can imagine some of the replies were pathetic excuses.
I have just completed a memorandum which has been sent to the House of Commons with a request that my evidence be included in the forthcoming Transport Select Committee Enquiry Into Effective Road And Traffic Management.
The applications for this have now been extended until 28th.Febuary 2011.
I will have to wait and see if my evidence will be accepted.
Huntingdonshire, which is my county town along with some other parts of Cambridgeshire, have not agreed to take on the [CPE’s] Civil Parking Enforcement Powers and so we have to rely on the police to enforce road traffic law.

Mike, could you put a link up to your photo. I’ve tried looking on flickr and on the photos linked to this site but I can’t find yours. Thanks.

As for the CPE powers, even in Hastings where they have taken on these powers, as far as pavement parking is concerned, they still delegate this to the rozzers, (if you go to the hastings town council website and work your way through, you find this

If there are no waiting restrictions on the highway adjacent to the pavement, and there are no restrictions to verge or footway parking indicated by signs, the Council have no powers to take action and this should be taken up with the Police since it constitutes obstruction.) so having the local council take over does not improve matters.

I have found that the biggest obstacle to getting the police to take any action is that the police are as prolific offenders as any member of the public so they don’t even understand the problem.

I also don’t understand the current police attitude to obstruction in the statement that they must witness someone being obstructed. When I worked as a traffic warden in brighton (before they decriminalised parking and took it over) I issued numerous tickets to vehicles on the pavements and even had many of them towed away. Not only did the courts back me up on this when motorists appealed, but I could always use myself as the person being obstructed. The definition I was given, which was upheld by court appeals, was that if anyone had to deviate from the their path to get round an obstacle on the pavement, then they had been obstructed. That simple definition gives the police more that adequate powers to deal with this.

Hi Graham, 2 things really
1. I am new to this bloging or whatever you call it so I really don’t know how to link.
2.What I am going for is the DRIVING ON THE PAVEMENT which is a road traffic offence and can only be issued by a police officer.Local authorities that are CPE just say the same as the police “We havn’t got the resourses to deal with all the problems”.
An area that I am pursuing is the insurance angle.I have spoken to the legal departments of 3 major insurance companies and posed the same hypothetical question,”If a car is parked or driven illegally would the insurance policy be valid.Without hesitation all 3 companies said the insurance policy would not be valid.

Has nobody got anything better to do with there time than make a poor website complaining about numberous examples of bad parking? maybe instead of wasting money hosting this site donate the money to something worth while like cancer research? also the TNT lorry is working? and try just asking politely or writing to the council.

Seriously guys get a life, Or atleast spend your time fighting something worth while?? Im a proffesional driver for a living and a website like this or guys like yourselves wont change the way i park to make deliveries/collections!!

If anything it makes me that little bit happier to know there is people im p***ing off just like the numurous amounts of people that do it to us drivers!!

Well I hope you or one of you loved ones never end up in a wheelchair, being forced out in to the road because you can’t use the footpath or are trapped in your own home because some inconsiderate motorist who does not want to be “Pissed off” has blocked up a public right of way because he or she can’t be bothered to think of others.
You are self and inconsiderate in my opinion SIR.

Ry, you may drive for a living but you are not a professional driver and probably never will be. I have a class 1 licence and have driven all over the British Isles and have never had to park on a pavement to do a delivery. I also know that there is a reason for zigzag lines at pedestrian crossings and I don’t place the lives of others at risk just to save myself a little aggro.

One last thing, if you find it so hard to contain your temper when at work, maybe you should start looking for a new job as it would appear that you aren’t suited to this one.

Perhaps all pavement parkers should be forced to take an eye test before they are given back their driving licence? They obviously need their vision looked at. More seriously, they could knock down a pedestrian when they drive onto the pavement!

I have maintained for some time that the overwhelming majority 4x4s are unnecessary, being only driven off-road in supermarket car parks and the pavement. Most of these vehicles sport road tyres and are clearly never used for towing. Many of the people who drive these monstrosities don’t have a clue about driving a 4×4 and it seems that some have received bad and very expensive news when their vehicle’s transmission has become noisy, due to ill-educated fiddling with the controls and driving with the diff-lock engaged while on the road. It is hard to escape the conclusion that these vehicles are bought and driven to intimidate other road users.

Wonderful website, sorely needed in these dark days of this feudal caristocracy.

Your gallery needs to highlight a new and developing trend in parking which is the habit I see daily now (years ago, you’d never ever see it) of parking across the pavement. Usually it’s when a person’s drive is full that the next car drives up to the front gate and parks across the pavement, entirely blocking it. I really need to photograph it since it has to be seen to be believed. The other day, both neighbours did it and I couldn’t walk up the street either way without having to walk across a grass verge and into the road.

What I want to know is: what are we meant to do? The council don’t care. Nor do the police. The neighbours couldn’t give a damn. Am I supposed to take this to my MP or council? How much of my life do I have to devote to something which should be a given? The simple right to walk unrestricted down my own street?

Incidentally, what does the law say about people driving across a verge planted with a tree and passing the tree (via the pavement — i.e. on the pedestrian side of the tree) in order to park on the verge on the opposite side of the tree? Again, I seem to be the only person bothered by this.

Having been actively campaigning on this for two years I am now of the view that we will only see meaningful change when we pedestrians make it impossible for the authorities to ignore us. The problem is that this issue is so divisive and is by it’s nature local we end up creating conflicts without our own neighbourhoods. Make local people support the campaigns, others truly hate it. The local neighbourhood watch team had a lot of feedback that it was an issue, but then dropped the issue when they sensed the level of opposition to any actin. Separately, I have been called a ‘despicable man’ by someone who lives nearby who insists of accelerating as fast as they can in our 20mph zone and hates being asked about it. I have also been called all sorts of names and on one notable occasion was assaulted (but that is an interesting story in itself and one I will be telling on this blog soon).

That said, this issue is rising and rising at present. Every time someone else buys a car and leaves it on the pavement it becomes harder for the officials to ignore it. My MP gets loads of complaints, but has yet to act on them. Do please complain to your MP, raise it locally at meetings and expect the police to do something.

Why do drivers park across pathways?
Because no drivers ever get towed away and have to use pathways until they get old or infirm and have no laws to protect them. Arrogant to the core until its them that has the problem. England 2011 – god knows what 2045 will look like for its inhabitants. Stop now and act. We do need old fashioned good manners and simple courtesy back, that’s all.

I recently commented on one of your other posts. I have now seen that you post images with the registration plates showing I am just wondering if you have checked out the legal status on this? Hope you can shed some light on this for me.

Car number plates are placed on vehicles so that they can be identified. That is their job! Photography in public places is definitely legal (even if some people think it is not). Any vehicle I show on my blog is committing, or has recently being involved in a driving offense in my view, so in my personal view it is totally reasonable to include the number plates, although I sometimes do remove them if I don’t want the vehicle to be identified for some reason.

I also try to use back-views of people rather than identifiable front shots unless it is relevant to show who the person is (which is rare). For example, I may include a back shot of 100 school kids negotiating a parked vehicle on the pavement from a distance, but never a front-shot.

Do always be aware that their are violent people out there, and regardless of the rights and wrongs of this some people will be very offended if they are criticised and some may become violent.

Thanks for getting back to me that’s all very useful! I read somewhere on your blog that you’d been assaulted because of what you do? I set my page up at the request of my grandfather who is the secretary for the Hartlepool branch of Guide Dogs for the Blind, he would have done it himself but he is blind and obviously because of that can’t.

According to Carlton Reid The 1835 Highway Act applies, except it is almost uniquely and unfairly enforced against pedal cyclists, while it applies equally to motor-vehicles and pedal cycles. It is also worth mentioning that motor-vehicles between 2005-2009 killed 151 times as many people on the footway as were killed by cyclists on the footway. Since the statistics do not differentiate between shared paths and footways, it is possible that some of the cyclists involved may have been there by right, a justification that cannot be applied to the drivers of motor-vehicles, with the rare exception where parking is permitted (I believe official signage is required). Not that being on a shared paths is any justification.

I would love to send you a photo of the white van that was parked half on the pavement and half on the road, on a T-junction in Caernarfon. Unfortunately, I was too busy jumping out of the way as a couple of young guys in a car came flying round the white van as I and an elderly lady were trying to cross the road. I’m so glad you’ve set up this site. I’m not the only one who feels unsafe. My neighbours park their car on the pavement as well, just by another junction forces everyone into the road and in the path of cars turning out of the junction. I love Wales but some car drivers have taken leave of their senses.

@R.Lahmer – The situation in Caernarfon is awful. I usually need to negotiate a handful of these cars parked on the pavement to get to work, which is merely annoying for me, but downright dangerous for those pushing buggies and so on.

You sound like you’re talking about the Maes in the centre of town where the no entry signs are mainly for show (nearly been knocked over by someone ignoring these before now) and the T-junction clearly has legal exemption from requiring drivers to indicate, judging by the scarcity of those who do!

How about kicking a dent into cars parked on pavements? It would seem to me that the car’s owner would be unlikely to bring an action even if they spotted you because they would then have to explain in court why you were able to kick their vehicle in the first place and this would then presumably render them liable to prosecution for parking there in the first place. Whilst tempted, I haven’t actually done this yet, but I do always try to ‘accidentally’ bump into the door mirror to displace it.

It’s not a certainty. A few years ago, a car slid into me during severe icy weather. I was on a roundabout, the other car was entering the roundabout, failed to stop and we touched bumpers. No damage, but the driver took offence at me being on the roundabout and in his way, left his car and proceeded to berate me. I phoned 999 and was reporting this incident of road-rage whilst he was banging on my driver window (kept closed, of course) Failing to engage me in debate, he turned his back to my car and kicked a dent in my door with his heel. I photographed him doing it and told the 999 call dispatcher that I had done so. He was forced to return to his car and went on his way. I was given an incident number and when able to I emailed the photo and an account of the incident, including the registration of his car. After a week, I was informed by the police that they were unable (unwilling, I suspect) to proceed with any prosecution as the driver of the car denied that it was he. So, I suggested to the police by return that they were perhaps offering a hint that these situations should be sorted out by the public directly. The response was that whilst it was not condoned, they themselves would not initiate any investigation or prosecution unless personal harm was visited upon either party.

Therefore, it would be entirely up to the owner of the damaged vehicle to initiate a civil prosecution – i.e. in the scenario I describe in my previous post, take me to court where he would then need to admit that his car was parked illegally on the pavement.

I also have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that a vehicle parked on the pavement is considered in law to have been abandoned and therefore not owned by any particular person, so there is nobody that may bring the accusation of criminal damage.

I do wonder what chance we stand we have when some driving instructors are ignorant of the facts around parking on the pavement and are teaching their students to be equally ignorant. Look at this new driver celebrating his pass with a pavement driving offense..
Or the same instructor waiting to pick up a pupil
Or another pupil of the same school celebrating her pass with a different parking offense
Maybe we need to get the IAM to take some action?

Pedestrians are discriminated against

"In contrast to the changes made to every town and city to ease motor transport, walking has been made ever more unpleasant. Pedestrians have been treated with contempt. In a myriad of ways when we walk we are treated with less respect than when we drive". (quote for a cross-party parliamentary select committee report on walking in towns from 2001).

This blog documents how this discrimination works, what laws underpin it and what people are doing to counter it. Please take action and share your experiences in the comments section, on twitter or join our facebook group. Add photos to the Flickr pool. All photographs cc-by-sa 3.0 unless otherwise stated or obvious from the source.